Sunshy: Sascha Deng, Gwen Giedeman, Wesley Park, and Formerly; John Golden
Interview: Matthew Hocutt, Shaye Rosengarden
Words/Photos: Shaye Rosengarden
The conversation below has been edited for clarity.
@ the Cobra Lounge 4/13/24
How did this band start?
WES: Sascha and I used to play in a band in college. We went to Northwestern. We always wanted to do a project there. I think we started out recording together. Then, once we had songs, we said, okay, we have got to start playing shows.
SASCHA: Gwen and I were room-mates in college. We are room-mates once again now. So, of course, Gwen was our first-choice bassist. And, John, would you like to tell the funny little story of how you and Wes met?
JOHN: We were both just at a show at the empty bottle, right up the street on Western. We’d known each other from playing in a band called Blinker. Both of us played drums at different times. I was a big fan of the music. He needed a drummer, and the rest is history.
What made Dissolve your biggest song so far?
WES: I guess that song just ended up on Spotify playlists. I got on with fresh finds playlists and stuff.
That was the second song you guys put out?
WES: Yes, On the Train was a low-
key thing we put up before Dis-solve because it was already out on one of our solo projects. So, I just put it up real quick. Then we did Dissolve, and that got all the streams.
Is all of your music produced in the bedroom?
WES: Yeah, I do all the production and the recording in the bedroom, but the mastering made it sound super duper good. It’s our friend in Seattle, Dylan Wall. He recorded Nausea, the Craft Spells record. He also did a bunch of my friend’s records and stuff. He also mas-tered that one Feeble Little Horse album (Hayday). I hit him up on email and was like, hell yeah!
What was your start with music?
GWEN: My start with music was playing saxophone in marching band in middle school. From there, I branched into playing guitar and doing home recordings. I’ve played in a couple of bands before Sun-shy, mostly things that I’ve fronted, but never something where we play as consistently as Sunshy does. I feel like we play a show or two a month. John here has quite a background in music.
JOHN: My dad was a drummer, so I had a drum set in the base-ment. I would play drums when I wasn’t playing basketball, skate-boarding, or whatever. I never took lessons or anything. When I moved to Chicago from Blooming-
ton, IL., I played in bands at my state university, started jamming with friends at a practice space, and then started going to shows, meeting people, and joining bands. Since 2021, I have been in and out of 10 different bands, and you know, Sunshy is definitely one that I’m super into the songwriting and the overall sound. It’s just fucking great. it’s awesome to play a little harder than I do in some other bands, too.
SASCHA: My dad was really- well, he’s still really into the guitar, but when I was younger, he was really encouraging me to play the piano. I had a brief stint in the harmon-ica, but neither panned out. The guitar really stuck with me. Like everyone else, I was in a band in high school and felt really lucky to know Wesley in college and play in his band and to kind of start a new chapter to my musical journey with Sunshy.
WES: I took cello lessons when I was little, and then when I was 12, I taught myself how to play guitar. I played in bands throughout high school. I was really into recording, so I always did it.
What do you use to record?
WES: I use logic. I have a faster workflow recording with logic. I use Ableton to help with mixing and ex-porting. I like shooting all the tracks into Ableton because I like some of the stock plugins they have, but they are all the same.
